Good Governance and Accountability in Ethiopian Houses confiscated by the Derg

Carting Away the Checks and Balances




For an outsider, particularly one from those cultures sensitive about protocol niceties, the change in title of Melaku Fenta appears to be a bit odd: he became director general of an amalgamated federal agency, from what looks like a demotion from a ministerial portfolio, as he had been minister of Revenues, overseeing the works of three separate federal agencies streamlining the state’s revenues collection job.


Now he reigns over an authority accountable to the Prime Minister, which has two former authorities under its embrace: the Federal Inland Revenues, and the Ethiopian Customs authorities. A third one, the National Lottery Agency, remains a separate entity, but reports to the newly reformed authority.


But to those familiar with the modes operandi of the Revolutionary Democrats, there is nothing new about this reshuffling, for they are disciples of their party, dedicated to fill any role assigned by it. They call it democratic centralism, and it requires an iron-fist discipline.


Remember Kuma Demeksa, who made a stunning comeback after he was deposed of his top most position in the Oromia Regional State, subsequent to the leadership crises within the EPRDF eight years ago?


He was made an ordinary member of the party, and assigned to be an immigration expert, only to rebound a few years later to claim the position of state minister for capacity building under Tefera Walwa, and minister of Defence, before he finally became the 29th mayor of Addis Abeba.

Melaku’s is a case far from such turbulence. Nevertheless, his decision to give up a senior position offered within the newly formed City Administration is simply because his comrades-in-arms were of the view that he would rather see the reforms he has architected at the state revenues machinery get through. And for a man who had been an important aide in the circle of the Prime Minister’s office a few years ago, he appears to be resolved to see changes, which indeed are happening, at an agency that is now directly answerable to the Chief Executive Officer of the executive branch. It looks as though tough days are ahead of him.


The new authority has resized with the aim of providing speedy, transparent and accountable services to the tax paying public. It is a worthy mission to uphold. The authority is thus aspiring to increase the revenues it collects from various forms of taxes to over 30 billion Br, not only generating 10 billion Br more for the state coffers during the coming fiscal year, but also covering close to 60pc of the Federal Budget. To do this, the authority could probably have over 140 million Br in recurrent budget; the ratio is that for every one Birr it spends, it will have to generate 204 Br income for the state.


This indeed requires enormous efficiency that ought to be measured by time and productivity. Clearly, it is a tough ballgame. And Melaku is given sufficient mandate and enormous power in his staff, which could help him both motivate and discipline the 3,000-strong manpower left running the business of the new agency.


Sadly, right there in the power bestowed upon him lies a worrying trend developing in Ethiopia. A decision made by the Council of Ministers, granting him carte blanche authority to defy rulings from the courts to reinstate employees charged of corruption but found innocent, embodies an ever powerful executive branch of a state becoming even more powerful, taking the law into its own hands and compromising the rights and duties of other institutions in the process.


This is all the more worrisome in light of a slightly parallel development where senior officials are individually entrusted to make institutions accountable directly to them. Take the case of the National Bank of Ethiopia; a recent decision made by the same Council, and shockingly approved by the legislators at Parliament, makes the central bank accountable directly to the Prime Minister, as opposed to the past where the accountability was to the institutional Council of Ministers.


For anyone curious enough to observe, there are series of such directives issued by the Council of Ministers - the supreme body of the executive branch - that are not only eroding the institutional role of the judiciary and other federal agencies, but also tampering with individuals’ constitutional rights.


A profound illustration of this is found in a piece of legislation passed by Parliament a few months ago, which has recreated a military-Marxist era relic: The Agency for the Administration of Rented Houses (AARH), formed following the nationalization of urban land and extra houses, in July 1975. The stormy years of this agency is evident in its complete lack of knowledge of the number of houses it had been administering, and the sizes of the plots on which the houses are built.


Judging from its history, there was a time when its managers used to claim to have managed 17,047 houses. By 2001, this number went up to 25,374 residential houses and 25 hostels, including new additions the agency had financed since then; this was also before a decision the following year by the Council of Ministers to limit the agency’s mandate to the capital and Dire Dawa that led the number to shrink to 19,602.


The most controversial lease of plots by the City Administration of places where the agency’s houses are located, and the return of residences to their former owners who had lost their properties to the government through confiscations outside of the nationalization proclamation brought the agency to list 16,000 houses under its management. This is not to mention the 5,000 cases the agency has under litigation with its tenants; it involves a judicial process that has frustrated the managers at the agency, and their supervisors at the Ministry of Works and Urban Development. They claim that the judicial process is long, exhaustive because of the several appeal processes, and expensive.


That could be probably true. But the response from the government to solve this problem is dreadful, for it has granted the agency, largely with the complacency of Parliament, the executive power to take the law into its hands whenever it finds itself at odd with tenants.


Says Article Six (3) of the Proclamation: “[the Agency] gives and executes expulsion orders to tenants of government houses who have breached their obligations under their lease contracts; enforces, as may be necessary, the demolition of illegal construction works undertaken on government houses and possessions.”


This article, fondly described as “eviction” by the rank-and-file at the agency, is one of the 15 provisions it is granted by the state for it to exercise in a manner of “great power and great responsibilities”, a phrase used in a journal the agency published in March 2008.


Ironically, the agency’s managers would rather go to great lengths to convince an otherwise subdued public that evictions are widely practiced in the United States, Spain and Scotland. It is part of a mindset in the government circle that believes that should something be alright to the Americans, so should it be justified here. It is a feeble argument, though, hard to win simply because it is not based on reason.


Ironically, the power entrusted upon managers of GHA, or the newly reformed Revenues and Customs Authority, or even the decision to make the central bank accountable to an individual authority as opposed to an institution tell a grand story of how powerful the executive branch of the state is getting at the expense of other institutions an open society needs for checks and balances. These are not merely technicalities or even functionalities of a state; but reflect the state’s belligerence to commit itself to a rule based system and society.


A state, like any other group or entity, is a party in a contractual agreement that society grants it. A state brought to political power through popular votes has its powers limited by a separation of powers of its different branches and a law that rules on their respective functions.

A constitution is thus a form of contractual agreement between the voting public and those who claim power through this voluntary form of power delegation to run the public’s business. Any infringement of this contractual commitment should be resolved through the due process of law, and far from a unilateral action by any of the parties involved. These parties thus need a place where they can make their cases as much as they can, and with an appeal process when they believe that justice has not been served.



A state left to act without boundaries of its powers would subject individual citizens to deprivation of their rights to live for the advancement of their self interest and goals, as is their natural right to own property and keep it as long as it they would like to. This right ought not to be taken away from them involuntarily by a state, or any other agent of society, without due process.


This is not far from individuals presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in an open court where they have the right to defend themselves. Should their innocence be proven in a court of law, there ought to be no reason to lead to the deprivation of their rights to work, or continue to have their respectful place in society.


All these values are interestingly are upheld in the Ethiopian constitution. It is alarmingly worrisome and disgruntling to see a government failing to live up to the promise superbly made in a document to which it was an architect a decade and half ago.